April 2014 Book Round-Up

67: MY The Alarming Clock(ebook) – Michael Avallone

68: Fa: Blood and Iron – Jon Sprunk

69: HR: A Face In The Crowd(ebook) – Stephen King & Stewart O’Nan

70: HR: Mile 81(ebook) – Stephen King

71: WE: Sierra Skullduggery – Jerry s. Drake

72: AD: Tom Swift and His Electronic Hydrolung(ebook) – Victor Appleton II

73: MY: The Guilty Ones(ebook) – Ross Macdonald

74: TH: Interfaced(ebook) – Emerson Doering

75: WE: The Axeman of Storyville(ebook) – Heath Lowrance

76: MY: The Imaginary Blonde(ebook) – Ross Macdonald

77: CR: Raylan – Elmore Leonard

78: TH: Rerun: A Modern Paranormal Thriller Novel(ebook) – Chris Manteria

79: CR: How White People Die(ebook) – Ernie Lindsey

80: CR: A Man From Rio(ebook) – Shayne Youngblood

81: AC: The Outcasts of Poker Flat(ebook) – Bret Harte

82: LI: Crumble(ebook) – Victor Penro

83: WE: Glorious – Jeff Guinn

84: CR: The Girls of Bunker Pines(ebook) – Garnett Elliott

85: FA: Ink Mage(ebook) – Victor Gischler

86: MY: Antiques Con – Barbara Allan

87: TH: A Dubious Curse(ebook) – Gerald J. Kubicki & Kristopher Kubicki

88: FA: The Rise of The Guardian(ebook) – Jennifer Ogden

89: TH: Death By Didgeridoo(ebook) – Barbara Venkataraman

90: TH: King of The Weeds – Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins

91: MY: The Case of The Killer Divorce(ebook) – Barbara Venkataraman

92: WE: Reckoning At Rainrock = Wayne D. Dundee

93: TH: Rattled(ebook) – Jude Hardin

April 2014 Movie Round-Up

Ellery Queen, Master Detective(1940)

The Hitch-Hiker(1953)

Blood For A Silver Dollar(1965)

For A Few Extra Dollars(1966)

Longstreet(1971)

God In Heaven…Arizona On Earth(1972)

Because I Like It: Little Caesar

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l, Little Caesar

Antiques Con – Barbara Allan

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Barbara Allan

ANTIQUES CON, the new Trash ‘n’ Treasures novel, by the writing team of Barbara and Max Allan Collins goes on sale today. Here’s a link to my review last week.

Ellery Queen, Master Detective(1940)

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Ellery Queen, Ralph Bellamy

Ellery Queen had already appeared in several movies by the time this B-movie series kicked off. The novel THE DOOR BETWEEN was the basis, though radically rewritten, slight comedy the word in films of the type during this period. So altered that a novelization(neither of the cousins were involved) was written and published, then later reissued as The Vanishing Corpse. Ellery(Ralph Bellamy) is a slightly smitten man with Nikki Porter(Margaret Lindsay), a would be mystery writer he meets. And who became his assistant throughout the series, another trope of this genre of mystery/comedy at the time.

The murder victim is John Braun, a health business magnate, has always prided himself on his health. Now his personal, and the business, doctor, James Rogers(Michael Whalen) has told him that he’s dying of a mysterious illness. He wants to shut down everything, something the business partners object to. They’d been promised a piece in his will. He changes his will, leaving everything to his wife. Things are complicated because he’s mad with his daughter, Barbara(Marsha Hunt), who announced she would marry Dr. Rogers. When dad objected, she storms out and has been missing for several months.

Braun’s wife, and Barbara’s mother, goes to Inspector Richard Queen(Charley Grapewin) and wants her daughter found. Ellery , looking for new ideas for his next book, is listening in in Sgt. Velie’s(James Burke) office gets the jump and traces her, by following the doctor to the apartment of Nikki Porter, Barbara’s friend where shee’d been living.

Posing as a private eye, no name given, Ellery is hoodwinked into believing Nikki is Barbara and delivers her to the Braun estate, where she gets locked into the master’s suite of rooms, only to find him later in the bedroom with his throat cut. A locked room mystery, the only way out seems to be through Nikki. The probable murder weapon, a jeweled dagger/letter opener is missing. As well as the new will.

There’s quite a bit of comedy as Ellery hides Nikki in the home shared with his father. Not to mention the ending when he asks the would-be mystery writer to be hi secretary.

Entertaining little film.

King of The Weeds – Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins

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Max Allan Collins, Mickey Spillane, Mike Hammer

Mike Hammer is in his mid-sixties and still tough as ever, albeit a bit slower. So when the hit man came at him, his reaction was not quite up to old standards. Still good enough for two shots in the chest and not one in the back of his head.If not for the thick paperback dictionary Mike had picked up for Velda, it would have been enough. It left his chest heavily bruised though.

Someone wanted Mike Hammer dead. Who? Both the Mafia and the government wanted him alive because they believed he knew the location of eighty-nine billion in cash and securities the old Dons had hidden away against their younger, better educated brethren. NoOne was positive about it though.

The hoard had been hijacked by the man the Dons had paid to hide it, a man who was an old war buddy of Mike and Pat Chambers. Mike had come at invitation and was there for the man’s last words.

At the same time, a forty year old case was coming back to haunt Mike and Pat. A serial killer they’d captured was apparently innocent, the real killer confessing as he was already dying of cancer. A huge lawsuit was in the offing. Throw in a rash of cops dying of various reasons to close together and the two men were suspicious.

This makes the sixth Hammer novel Mr. Collins has completed from extensive fragments and notes left by the late author. They just keep getting better. Collins melds his own style perfectly and produces some great fiction here.

Release date is May 6th. On that day, I’;; post a reminder and a link to this review.

New In The House

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1: King of The Weeds – Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins: Mr. Collins offered autographed copies and I jumped. Review goes up Wednesday. Hammer finds himself up against a clever serial killer targeting only cops. A killer his old friend Captain Pat Chambers had put away many years ago is suddenly freed on new, seemingly indisputable evidence, and Hammer wonders if this seemingly placid, very odd old man might somehow be engineering cop killings that all seem to be either accidental or by natural causes. At the same time Hammer and Velda are dealing with the fallout – some of it mob, some of it federal government – over the $89 billion dollar cache the detective is (rightly) suspected of finding not long ago.

2: The River of Souls(ARC) – Robert McCammon: The year is 1703. The place: the Carolina settlement of Charles Town. Matthew Corbett, professional ‘problem solver,’ has accepted a lucrative, if unusual, commission: escorting a beautiful woman to a fancy dress ball.
What should be a pleasant assignment takes a darker turn when Matthew becomes involved in a murder investigation. A sixteen-year-old girl has been stabbed to death on the grounds of a local plantation. The suspected killer is a slave who has escaped, with two family members, into the dubious protection of a nearby swamp. Troubled by certain discrepancies and determined to see some sort of justice done, Matthew joins the hunt for the runaway slaves. He embarks on a treacherous journey up the Solstice River, also known as the River of Souls. He discovers that something born of the swamp has joined the hunt…and is stalking the hunters with more than murder in mind.
What follows is a shattering ordeal encompassing snakes, alligators, exiled savages, mythical beasts, and ordinary human treachery. The journey up the River of Souls will test Matthew’s courage, commitment, and powers of endurance. It will also lead him to a confrontation with a figure from his recent past, which will alter Matthew’s life, setting the stage for the next installment in this compulsively readable series.
Gripping, unsettling, and richly atmospheric, The River of Souls is a masterful historical adventure and a major addition to Robert McCammon’s extraordinary body of work.featuring the continuing exploits of a young hero USA Today has called ‘the Early American James Bond.’

3: The Devil In The Marshalsea(ARC) – Antonia Hodgson: It’s 1727. Tom Hawkins is damned if he’s going to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a country parson. Not for him a quiet life of prayer and propriety. His preference is for wine, women, and cards. But there’s a sense of honor there too, and Tom won’t pull family strings to get himself out of debt—not even when faced with the appalling horrors of London’s notorious debtors’ prison: The Marshalsea Gaol.
Within moments of his arrival in the Marshalsea, Hawkins learns there’s a murderer on the loose, a ghost is haunting the gaol, and that he’ll have to scrounge up the money to pay for his food, bed, and drink. He’s quick to accept an offer of free room and board from the mysterious Samuel Fleet—only to find out just hours later that it was Fleet’s last roommate who turned up dead. Tom’s choice is clear: get to the truth of the murder—or be the next to die.

Today’s Humor: Star Trek Style

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Star Trek

For A Few Extra Dollars(Per Pochi Dollari Ancora(1966)

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Giuliano Gemma, spaghetti western

In addition to the above title, this movie also appeared in various U.S. releases as fort Yuma Gold and Die Now, Pay Later. It stars Giuliano Gemma(again billed as Montgomery Wood) as Lt. Gary Hammond(Diamond in some releases), a Civil War POW not yet released as the conflict had just recently ended.

He’s given a chance to warn a group of Confederates still fighting the war. A captured bandit from the Rebel outlaws reveals that a plan is in to hit Fort Yuma which is holding a million in gold to pay off all the soldiers in the area. It’s supposed to be understaffed and easy pickings. Gary knows the area and is to deliver a dispatch warning the fort of the attack, a set-up to kill the eight hundred men in the Rebel band, a lot of them friends of Gary.

His purpose is dual, to let the fort know and the band that they won’t be fired upon unless they start it. Accompanying Gary are two Union officers in civilian clothes: a rough but friendly Sgt. Pitt(Nello Pazzafini, billed as Red Carter) and an officer one just naturally mistrusts, Captain Lefevre(Angel del Pozo).

An ambush leaves him for dead, but he’s aided by an old man named Riggs(Dan Vadis) and a beautiful blond singer/dancer with the stage name Connie Breastfull(sophie Daumier). And she was.

Double crosses, torture, and extraordinary bravery follow as he tries to complete his mission.

Gemma’s character was like most he played in the spaghettis. They were never the hard-bitten, cynical types like most. Happy go lucky was his forte, but still with an edge when he needed one.

This film was a stylish piece based on the Jules Verne novel Billy Strogoff and had a host of hands on the screen credits. The music was by Gianno Ferrio, though I noticed the name Ennio Morricone as well. A little research showed that a piece of his from another film was used as an excuse to play off his name. Morricone sued them over it.

One final note: the title I used, considering the date of release, was an obvious attempt to ride the coattails of the Leone/Eastwood Dollar pictures.

FFB: The Coming Race – Baron Edward Bulwer-Lytton

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Forgotten Books

The author was a bestseller in his day and turned out a stream of popular novels that earned him a fortune. He also coined a number of well known phrases such as “the pen is mightier than the sword,” “the great unwashed,” and “pursuit of the almighty dollar”(the very first paragraph of this book), not to mention perhaps the worst opening line in history, “It was a dark and stormy night.”

THE COMING RACE was an early example of science fiction that a lot of folks believed real(supposedly there was a secret Vril Society though no one has ever found definitive proof). First published in 1871 anonymously, it was soon acknowledged as his. VRIL: The Power of The Coming Race(first title) concerned a subterranean winged race wishing to reclaim the surface world their ancestors once lived upon. Their underground world was filling up. The novel first popularized the hollow Earth theory and later led to some of my favorite works. These people powered their fantastic devices with something known as Vril, a liquid that could, depending on how it was used, be a destroyer or a healer. They could access it with their minds.

Our hero, alone after his friend is killed in a fall, explores the world and meets the people and strange creatures, flying machines, the like, learning their history as he becomes proficient in their language.